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About this project

To Make a Long Story Short...:

My name is Eric Cayton, and I'm the Pastry-Chef-Owner for Private Label Baker, in the Hershey, Pennsylvania area. I hand produce desserts and breads for local fine dining establishments. The website for my company, for those that would like to see it, is simply PrivateLabelBaker.com. The Derry Church Bakery Project recreates the type of hometown artisan bakery-cafe that our Great Grand Parents would have been familiar with (...only with wi fi ! ) Derry Church Bakery is about simple, high quality organic and seasonal ingredients, locally sourced from Central Pennsylvania farms. It will be a very warm and inviting place, and I hope to offer a large dining and gathering room with communal tables and a wood-burning hearth and a place where people will feel safe and comfortable. Of course, most importantly, I will be offering exquisite quality Rustic French Farmhouse cakes, chocolate truffles, pies, tarts, and artisan breads as well as a full cafe menu, all hand -prepared with the finest organic ingredients with no short-cuts.

The Derry Church Bakery project, is essentially an expansion project for all of the hard work, education and training, and the deeply personal relationships I have developed over the years through my small businesses, with the local small family farms and my existing Customer base. If I am successful in this Kickstarter campaign, and I can raise the 50K I need for this project, every penny of your money will go to this end. I already have my location chosen in downtown Hershey, PA, and have spoken with the Real Estate Agent, so I am counting on this! This money will go toward leasing the property, the ovens, mixers, refrigeration and freezer space, as well as some marketing and advertising I will need to develop the project. I already have the entire concept for Derry Church Bakery, along with menus, pricing, and recent local and national Press I've received over the past few years at my website here:

The Derry Church Bakery Project most definitely has a finite beginning and an end to it. The project started many many years ago, when I was a child growing up in the 70's & 80's in my hometown of Derry Church, Pennsylvania...better known by it's modern-day name, Hershey, PA.

I am a professional Pastry Chef and Chocolatier. I have always been a Pastry Chef & Chocolatier..I quite literally, was born this way...it is all I have ever wanted in life, and I have always worked in this capacity. Even as a small child, I always knew that I wanted to own my own bakery...and I always knew that I wanted to open it in my hometown. And the Derry Church Bakery Project will end, at least as far as the purposes of this endeavor is concerned, when I have accomplished this bakery start up in Hershey, PA.

This is not just some "pipe dream" that I just dreamed up last week. Nor have I just stood idly by, allowing my unfortunate circumstances to dictate my life's outcome. Through my company, Private Label Baker, I have begun supplying local fine dining restaurants in the Harisburg-Hershey, PA area with gourmet French desserts, renting kitchen space from a local Caterer, and I now supply 8 establishments. But sadly, this is just not enough start up capital to expand into my long dreamt Derry Church Bakery.

Til now, and up to this point in my life, my financial misfortune, and lack of adequate resources have prevented me from fulfilling my life-long dream of opening my own bakery, and I am asking you to help me in this most noble and worthwhile cause! You see, hometown bakeries not only benefit the owner...I will employ others, and teach others a valuable trade. My bakery will support our hard-working local small family farms, and will also contribute value and a sense of well-being to my community. ...after all, what is more comforting than the smell of baking bread or cookies?

Link for Chef Cayton's interview and walk-thru of Derry Church Artisan Chocolates with Pennsylvania State Senator Pat Vance: (note*: 28 minute video link can be found in Senator Vance's archives for February, 2011)